For many years agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material so as to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler, for example a round baler, travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into cylindrically-shaped round bales.
More specifically, pickups of the baler gather the cut and windrowed crop material from the ground then convey the cut crop material into a bale-forming chamber within the baler. A drive mechanism operates to activate the pickups, augers, and a rotor of the feed mechanism. A conventional baling chamber may consist of a pair of opposing sidewalls with a series of belts that rotate and compress the crop material into a cylindrical shape.
When the bale has achieved a desired size and density, a wrapping system may wrap the bale to ensure that the bale maintains its shape and density. For example, a net may be used to wrap the bale of crop material. A cutting or severing mechanism may be used to cut the net once the bale has been wrapped. The wrapped bale may be ejected from the baler and onto the ground by, for example, raising a tailgate of the baler. The tailgate is then closed and the cycle repeated as necessary and desired to manage the field of cut crop material.
One of the critical features on a round baler net wrapping system is the knife. In order to produce an ideal round bale package, a uniform cut is desired across the entire width of the net. In addition to improving the appearance of the bale, a clean cut also reduces the risk of loose net ends being caught in moving parts of the baler. Conventional balers require a high-speed impact cut to create a clean cut. This method of cutting requires considerable energy be used to accelerate the knife bar to an acceptable cutting speed and is also very dependent on adequate net tension to achieve a uniform cut.
Conventional net knives move in an opposite direction to the direction of net motion. In this conventional configuration, the net motion acts to hold the knife out of the cut position and requires a lot of net tension in order to effectively cut the net. The opposite direction of travel of the knife and net also may result in an uneven or ragged cut. This can result in the net starting to tear as soon as the knife touches the net and the net may not tear evenly across the entire surface of the bale. For example, a few strands may be cut early and then a few strands may be cut later on.
A net cutting solution is needed that is not sensitive to net tension and also requires less energy to perform the net cutting. A net cutting configuration that facilitates the movement of the knife into the net and the cut position is also desirable.